Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word

By Roos Schut, 2011

School/Organization: WVSS

Grade/Program: Art

Teacher: Kendall Cave

Media: Mixed Media

This piece is a reflection of the harmful effects our society has on young infants. There are many examples of this and the one that I chose to focus on is the effects that a smoking mother has on her infant. I feel very strongly about this issue, and I wanted to portray it in an as effective way as possible. I feel that this was, perhaps, the best way; it leaves room for interpretations of the viewer yet my messages are also conveyed. The piece, Growing Connections (Kaarina Kaikkonen, Finland) was my main inspiration in the Vancouver Biennale exhibition. Kaikkonen’s piece is a long chain of shirts all linked together, bent and twisted into arcs and seemingly never ending. My piece has this element to it as well with the chain of cigarettes; the chain stretches across the canvas on either side, giving the allusion that it’s never ending. One of my themes is that the oblivious harm to our infants seems to be ongoing, never-ending problem in our society today.